Thursday, October 27, 2011

Ah, jumping the shark. Most hated word by my peers. They would of course just say "Ah, come onnnn. Shai is talking about shows that is jumping whales or bombing the freezer or those things and bore us to death wi-it again." (I am just pretending my friends are all Cockneyed British, that explains the weird english)

It's actually "jumping the shark" and "nuking the fridge". Also known as "the pompous terminology reviewers use to explain stuff people don't care".

Which of course I have to explain (again!) before I start on my whimsical journey through criticising television... because my life is so great I have to find faults in others. That's sarcasm, by the way - and I have to explain that because Malaysians have this weird understanding of what is sarcasm. You see, "Whateverrrr" is not sarcasm and no, it doesn't make you cool. It makes you even uncooler when you use it without really understanding how to use it. Okay, back to the subject.

Jumping the shark is a term that means.... like, when a television series is starting to lose its je ne sais quoi (which is my pretentious French for saying "uniqueness") and starts doing all these nonsensical stuff or the other way around, in order to get its ratings back. It derives from (uuu... using the word "derive", how very elitist of me) from the 70s show "Happy Days", when the show made Henry Winkler's character Fonzie (or "The Fonz") show his ultimate coolness during water-skiing by jumping over a shark.

"Nuking the fridge" is the movie equivalent of the term, and derives from the scene in "Indiana Jones 4" where Indie hides himself inside a fridge to survive a nuclear bomb test. Which is pretty ridiculous and too McGyver-esque rather than Indiana Jones-ish. It shows that the movie is trying too hard to be as great as its predecessor, thus they make him too great, which is another word for "ridiculous".

So now, every single television shows or movie franchise that bombs (negatively, I mean), will be called these two terms. You diggin it now?

Which is what I want to talk about now. My most favourite shows on the planet going blergh. And them went blergh with the same reason.

HOUSE

I don't watch HOUSE anymore. I used to. He was this very snarky, disgruntled old man with a cane, sexy blue eyes and that attraction of knowing that Hugh Laurie is actually English. House was a mean bastard, agnostic to a T, and was the first ever racist-sexist that was accepted by the public.

But then he started to not use Vicodin. Which is mistake number one, because everybody wants to see a broken House and House is broken with Vicodin. You can't make him the same man with only ibuprofen. That's jumping the shark number one.

Then, everybody loves the whole love-hate relationship he had with Cuddy. But viewers (in another word, ME) don't actually want them to be together - or being together and spending half of season 7 groping each other. Eww.

But it actually starts losing its way since he fired every single one of his staffers. Okay, that was a bold and brilliant plot, but what comes after that is bullshit. A SURVIVOR type show where House eliminates doctors he doesn't want?

These type of shows cannot last more than five seasons without starting to get all messy and ridiculous.

HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER

The problem with the show is it doesn't define itself. Is it an ensemble cast? If HIMYM was an ensemble, like FRIENDS, it should not have called itself "HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER" because then we will read it as "a story about this guy named Ted and his friends"... in short, his friends are only secondary to anything Ted does.

Note to readers (again), ensemble is when the show is about everybody in it, rather than a story about one person and all the others are just his sidekicks. FRIENDS is an ensemble cast, so does DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES. Usually all these sitcoms are called "an ensemble cast", but actually that's not the case.

So when you make up plots about Barney or Robin and put Ted behind, it makes it feel slightly weird because it is about Ted, isn't it? But if it is not an ensemble, then why would I have to care about who Barney is marrying?

The thing about FRIENDS (and I have to say, I love HIMYM MORE than FRIENDS, because FRIENDS felt a bit too gay for me.... I still am not convinced by Joey's ability to get girls), is that the title itself is self-explanatory. It's about friends. It's about all six of them. So it's not weird if today's show centers on Monica's obsessive behaviour and then next week it's all about Ross. It's a story of them all. But the title HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER kinda narrows it to this idea that it is about Ted (because it even started with Ted telling his kids about it), and his friends are just the background.

So yes, I have issues with the latest season because they wanted to emphasise on the other characters, leaving Ted mopping behind. And yet, unlike FRIENDS (where you can do that), it makes it feel detached from its objective. You kinda go, "It's seventh episode already, why the hell I am still watching Barney getting all lovey-dovey with Nora? Where is Ted?"

It used to be exciting and quirky and very random. Each story, no matter how ridiculous it is, has an explanation (like the goat that attacked Ted) and make you go "That is so brilliant!". Now it's just "Oh, Barney is getting married.", "Robin has a psych boyfriend", "Marshall and Lily is getting a baby" whoopdeedoo.

I have a thing about this Barney thing. He is not humane. Don't make him one. I know that everybody has a heart, but Barney is funny because he has no heart. Shouldn;t make him fall in love. It's a boon to every single rebellious character. See:

1. HOUSE : House falling in love -TANKED

2. SUPERNATURAL : Dean Winchester has a love that got away - TANKED

3. HIMYM: Barney fell in love. Twice. - DOUBLE TANKED

4. TWILIGHT : A wolf and a vampire in love with the same woman? TANKED BADLY. Sorry, this is not a tv series nor it has anything to do with what I am saying. I just don't like TWILIGHT by principle, that's all.

CSI

CSI started going nowhere when William Peterson quit. Langston cannot compete with Gil Grissom by any level and the attempt to make him slightly interesting only makes me lose more interest. And then Laurence Fishburne quit by the end of season 11 and Ted Danson took his place. And he tried to be all suave and interesting. I mean, here's a penny for a thought. Stop trying to make them unique. Just make them normal. Why do you have to make every single old men character unique and all witty? It's exasperating.

CSI Miami, I can't say. I never liked Horatio from the start - him and his shades.

Meanwhile, CSI New York jumps the shark when they use ridiculous gadgetry.

"Oh, what is the COD?" (which is Cause of Death, not Cash on Delivery, thank you)

"Let's check it with our extremely technological 3D thingy that the military don't have but we have because we're in New York and Anthony Zuiker just invested all his cash into CGIs. Oh look, a 3D version of the body. Yes, the court will accept this, I believe, since we just have an image of a body and its liver, nothin else. He died from liver failure."

"I guess he didn't 's-liver' himself out of this."

"Ha. Ha. Ha. What a witty thing to say, you CSI you."

Pfft. Come on now.

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES

Do you even need to make every single new neighbour bad? There are 50 houses in my neighbourhood, the most annoying thing one would do is honking late at night or car alarm setting off because a cat jumps on the roof. I don't want to live in Wisteria Lane. It's so scary. The scariest would be neighbour with Susan Delfino and her goody-two-shoes demeanour. Yes. Demeanour!

I watched this show while doing my nails. I didn't even look at it, that's how uninteresting it is now.

GREY'S ANATOMY

I never actually watch this. But this show is like.... it's not a normal tv series. This is like a soap drama that should be nominated on Daytime Emmy, not your night show.

UGLY BETTY

Thank God it was cancelled after a few season. Because I was a fan of the telenovela "Yo Soy Betty La Fea" and there is NOTHING mildly interesting about the Americanised Betty (which is my way to say the US version of Betty and the fact that it is played by a woman named America Ferrera). The fact that Ana Maria Orozco's Betty (the original) is called ugly is because she is ugly. No man wanted to be with her, no girls wanna share any fashion tips with her. But Ferrera's Betty is just a girl with braces. And she ended up in a relationship with five guys. What? Are you trying to trick me into believing ugly girls can get five guys, three of them hot, while another is actually hot without the glasses? What a load of baloney.